PV-2D Harpoon 84062 (Tanker 101) comes back to life

Russ Matthews · **Posted:** Thu May 05, 2016 2:14 pm

The first full trailer for "USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage" can be see here ...

http://www.darkhorizons.com/news/42803/first-trailer-nic-cage-in-uss-indianapolis

While the special effects work may seem a bit uneven at this point, that just serves to make the gloriously practical PV-2D footage stand out even more! Stockton Field's Harpoon 062 can be glimpsed around the 02:34 and 03:05 marks.

TAdan · **Posted:** Thu May 05, 2016 4:48 pm

Wow, the Harpoon looks spectacular! Nice to see the Catalina in action before her unfortunate ending.

Pretty good trailer.

Taigh Ramey · **Posted:** Sat May 07, 2016 1:20 pm

Gotta love the Enola Gay CG sequence at :35

All those years of hand modelling school paid off big time at 2:35 in the trailer.

Then there's Kenny doing a masterful job hamming it up in the top turret.

It was a lot of fun to shoot. Great people to work with.

We opened the bomb bay doors for the first time in flight. I'd love to see what it looks like but I guess we will wait to see it on the big screen or the DVD whichever comes first.

lucky52 · **Posted:** Fri Jun 03, 2016 9:21 pm

This might be old news to everybody,there are 2 PV-2 type aircraft without their wings sitting at the Abbyville,La. airport(KIYA).I think one has engines and the other doesn't.

GARY HILTON · **Posted:** Tue Jun 07, 2016 5:52 pm

The two Poons at Abbyville would be "Fat Cat II" and "Swamp Cat". Swamp Cat has one engine on it (and prop) Both are for sale at $35,000 for the pair....that's what I was quoted. Turrets not included, nor are the bomb doors. Main spar on Swamp Cat has some corrosion, had been repaired at one time, but starting to defoliate under the primer. Fat Cat II suffered an early gear retraction, bomb bay doors absorbed most of the damage as well as gear doors, of course props and engines were lunched...some flap damage as well. Both have sat in the gulf climate of La. you can tell from the moss growth on the north sides of both aircraft. I tried to get one of the fuselages last March, but I stepped into a pool that was a little deeper than expected, and that's a wrap!
G

lucky52 · **Posted:** Tue Jun 07, 2016 10:35 pm

Thanks Gary.I make it over there about once a month but I don't always have time to go look.I will try to look at them some time just for grins. I don't know much about prices,but that seems steep for what they are.

Taigh Ramey · **Posted:** Thu Jul 21, 2016 5:28 pm

Last Saturday we flew the Harpoon to Truckee Air Fest which is near Lake Tahoe. It was a great show and we had a lot of people tour through the Harpoon.

We were parked next to the CAF's PBJ which was a real treat to see in person. I hear this was their first air show. Well done guys!

I can't recall seeing such a long line for tours. Sure was nice.

Sadly on the way home our left engine decided that it was not happy and packed it in. As we were climbing out over the Sierras the left oil temp kept climbing and made it clear that a main bearing or something similar was not feeling well inside. We were in such a position that shutting it down was not the thing to do so I decided to get as much out of dying engine as possible so we could get as far out of the mountains as we could.

After feathering the left engine we headed home and made it safely back to Stockton. Thanks to the crew for helping out and getting her home all safe and sound.

Nick, one of our museum's board members and WIX member, had come across a gentleman who had an engine for possible donation. We were able to make a deal with him for the engine and it looks like a great candidate to temporarily replace the metal maker.

Our original plan was to acquire this engine and start a rotation/repair schedule for our engines. Take one off and send it in to Ray Anderson at Anderson Aeromotive so he could go through them and do an IRAN, inspect and repair as necessary. Well we have just had that schedule moved up bunch.

We are going to remove the left engine and take it to Ray for his evaluation. Once we know where we stand we will be beating the bushes for funding for its repair. Then we will put the new one on the aircraft and send the next one in for Ray to work his magic on and more fund raising. The end result will be two fresh engines and one good spare.

The engines are about the last big project we have to complete the Harpoon. With engines that have been gone through by Ray, she should be good to go for decades to come.

The guns for the nose and turret are about ready to ship. Jon has been working hard on the sim fire for the guns and they sound great so far. We still need to address our outer wing tanks at some point to get them back on line.

With the other projects coming along nicely, we just have to get the engines all fixed up.

That's all for now...

Craig59 · **Posted:** Thu Jul 21, 2016 6:42 pm

Taigh and crew,

As a captain, check airman, and designee on a medium twin (MD-80

), I'm always impressed when professional aviators can calmly take an emergency and turn it into a routine non-normal. A more useful showing of my appreciation has been submitted via PayPal in hopes the PV-2D will be airborne again very soon.

Best Wishes!

phil65 · **Posted:** Thu Jul 21, 2016 8:07 pm

Could you get it any closer to the hanger door ?

Good luck,
Phil

Michel Lemieux · **Posted:** Thu Jul 21, 2016 10:05 pm

Sincerely happy the incident ended well....

Taig, I have been following this thread since the start.

Considering where these engine came from and how long they sat, I am simply in awe of the service they gave you and the team.

- How many hours did they had when you got the bird?
- How many years had the sat no even preserved?
- And how many total hours did you add before this one caved in?

All the best in the adventures ahead :drink3:

Thank you for the great entertainment this has been for me in the past years.

pontiac58 · **Posted:** Fri Jul 22, 2016 1:06 pm

Michel Lemieux wrote:

Sincerely happy the incident ended well....

Taig, I have been following this thread since the start.

Considering where these engine came from and how long they sat, I am simply in awe of the service they gave you and the team.

- How many hours did they had when you got the bird?
- How many years had the sat no even preserved?
- And how many total hours did you add before this one caved in?

All the best in the adventures ahead :drink3:

Thank you for the great entertainment this has been for me in the past years.

I was wondering the same thing.

Taigh Ramey · **Posted:** Fri Jul 22, 2016 6:37 pm

Thanks Craig for the donation to the Harpoon. We appreciate it and it will be put to good use.

Our engines were built new in 1945 by Ford and then they were preserved and put in steel containers for storage. They were pulled from the cans and put on the Harpoon just for its flight from Pennsylvania in 1994 to its new owner Ralph Johnson. They had 20 hours of flying time since they were built and then they sat for 16 years in a relatively dry location at Johnson's ranch near Hidden Valley, California.

When we were asked if we wanted the Harpoon there was a deadline when the aircraft was to be cut up for scrap. For us the major deciding factor was the health of the engines. If they could come back to life, then maybe we could save the old gal by flying her out of her grave yard. If not, then it was unlikely that we could afford to dismantle the PV-2 and truck her out because of the major cost involved and the remoteness of its location. It was a massive expense just to save her by flying her out but that was going to be much cheaper than the alternative plus the fact that she might never get put back together.

When we got to the Harpoon the first order of business was inspecting the engines. We pulled the screens to check for metal or other issues. They were clean. we took oil samples to check for fine metal through analysis. We pre oiled the engines and pulled the props through while pre oiling.

Analysis looked good as did the screens after our first few engine runs. We installed oil filters pretty quickly as I wanted to catch anything that might have been swimming around inside the oil system coming from the engines. We kept a close eye on them and they looked surprisingly good so we flew her home from her parking spot in the hills near Hidden Valley.

Since then we have kept a close eye on the engines and they have been running very well with the exception of higher than normal oil consumption. The consensus was that the oil rings likely were not as sharp as they should have been from sitting thus the oil on the cylinder walls the cause. She didn't really smoke that much in cruise and not that much oil appeared to be exiting the engine or breather. Our trail on takeoff appears to be rich mixtures due to the color.

We flew her just under 70 hours at the time of the failure last Saturday which means the engines had about 90 hours’ total time since new.

Of note was that this Harpoon has had a history of left engine failures. before it came to California.

The story from one of the tanker 101 pilots goes that while she was on contract with Kinney the left engine was on its way toward failing. Making metal as I recall but they kept her going to get as much out of it as they could. The engine finally gave up while heading to a fire and they punched out the load and turned home with one caged. The copilot said he was concerned as the fire and their altitude was below the elevation of the airport. The pilot said no sweat, watch this, and climbed on the remaining engine and they made it home safe and sound.

The pilot told the story of replacing the bad engine with a surplus engine and then that subsequent engine failed, likely because they had not thoroughly cleaned all of the metal out of the oil system from the first failure.

When you have a failure like this the metal from the bearing, crankshaft etc. is circulated through the entire oil system, oil cooler, oil tank, governor, prop etc. Lots to clean out when you have a failure like this. It was this second failure that lost Kinney the contract for that fire season and pushed him over the edge to bankruptcy so the story goes.

On a side note: The pilot that told me this said that he was owed a lot of pay but lost it in the bankruptcy. He went on to say that several years later he got a call from Kinney saying that he finally had his money and that he was sorry it took so long to pay him. Needless to say he was flabbergasted and had high praise for Kinney and his character as a business man.

So why the long story...when we were prepping the Harpoon to go to Oshkosh in 2013 I needed extra fuel range since we only had our front and rear main fuel tanks working. Our outer wing tanks leaked and is going to be a very large project to get them fixed up. I decided to get the fuselage and drop tanks working to give us the legs we needed for fewer fuel stops. In getting these systems working I needed to replace the long unused 1944 dated rubber self-sealing fuel hoses that ran through the wing spar box. These hoses were quite pliable and in amazing shape for being 70 year old rubber. I saved them for posterity!

To get the hoses out and replaced I needed to drop the oil tanks out to gain access inside of the wing spar box. When I pulled the oil tanks out I took the opportunity wash them with avgas and then steam clean them before they were reinstalled. When I started cleaning the left tank I was aghast to see lots of metal under the layers on the bottom of the oil tank. Holy crap our engine is making metal?!

I pulled the oil filters and no metal was found. I sent another oil sample off for analysis and it too was clean. It donned on me that this must have been metal from the previous two failures that was not cleaned and was stuck in the bottom of the tank.

A quick check of the right side oil tank showed a perfectly clean tank. I had a pair of new oil tanks so I simply replaced them all together and all has been well since...

I do wonder if some of this metal may have led to our problems last Saturday. Some old wear on the bearing that lead to its failure. Who knows as it could have been a blemish on the bearing from sitting for so long or a myriad of other possibilities. These kinds of failures happen on new engines right out of overhaul as well as so we hope to try and find out what may have happened when we tear them down at Rays place.

Engines can fail both old and new. I have run surplus engines that have been sitting for more than 16 years and they have made it a thousand hours to TBO and I have had fresh overhauls start making metal within 100 hours too. This is a part of the game we play.

In an ideal world we would have had the funds to pull the engines and had complete overhauls before we left on the first flight but we were not in that position so we checked and tested very frequently and all looked well. The right engine looks great too even after this last flight but it could fail on the next flight or run another 1200 hours. There are no guarantees in this vintage aircraft business

I see that something similar happen to our good friends in Texas with the A-26K Special K with one of their R2800's. Sorry guys, I feel your pain and we wish you the best.

I am sure that once we get Ray to go through our engines we will be set for quite some time. He is the number one large radial engine guru and I fully trust he will treat us right. I am looking forward to bringing the engine up to his shop. Hopefully we can coordinate it so I can be there for the tear down and I will document the process of what goes on in his place of magic.

Good stuff will come out of this but for now it’s off to OSH.

Mark Allen M · **Joined:** Fri Feb 03, 2012 1:48 pm **Posts:** 7796

Sorry to hear about the drama Taigh (but a safe result thankfully) let me know what I can help with when it's time. Possibly run into you at OSH.

Mark

Michel Lemieux · **Posted:** Sat Jul 23, 2016 3:05 pm

Thank you Taig for the story!!!!!

20 + 80 hours......still not bad considering 16 years sitting still.

Michel

Taigh Ramey · **Posted:** Mon Oct 03, 2016 6:12 pm

Ed is a kind gentleman who donated his R2800-31 to us. The engine was built by Ford at about the same time as our engines. In fact it is within 100 serial numbers of ours and it originally was installed on PV-2D 84059 only three aircraft away from 062. 059 was owned by Rick Turner's dad and he had it certified as N230Z. Rick is a WWII aviation historian and author who is a nut for Harpoons and Warbirds. Here is a shot of 059 when Rick's Dad bought it with our future engine.

After her certification she was sold and became an air tanker. She looks pretty good with civil paint. This was taken in 1968

The engine we now own was removed from N230Z for and had repair work accomplished and was time continued and put in storage until we acquired it. The logs look good as does the engine. Thanks Ed!!

We pre-oiled it and sprayed the cylinders with light oil and let it soak for a bit and then turned it over under pre oil. It was free and the screens looked decent so we decided that it would be worth the effort to hang it on the wing and test it out. Sounds simple doesn't it? sure it does...

Our awesome friends from the Arizona Living History Unit offered to drive all the way up from Phoenix on Labor Day weekend to help with the remove and replace. You guys are the best!. We set out the weekend before they came up to get the QEC off of the firewall. The QEC, or quick Engine Change unit, is everything on the engine forward of the firewall which includes all accessories, plumbing and wiring. Back in the day they had replacement QEC's all built up so it was a relatively quick operation to swap QEC's, like it could be accomplished one day as opposed to three days or more depending on manpower.

Ricky, Steve, Caleb, Sydney and Scott showed up on a Saturday to help remove the QEC. Ricky, Caleb and Steve started disconnecting the plumbing and electrical on the firewall as well as taking the nuts off of the engine mounting bolts. I worked on getting the prop ready for removal and general micromanaging, I'm good at that, right guys?

We started around 8am and had her off by 1pm. Well done guys! Now we are all ready for the Arizona gang next weekend

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PV-2D Harpoon 84062 (Tanker 101) comes back to life

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